“You arenotdying today,” she muttered, her gaze locked on his back. His shirt was shredded, the fabric dark with blood. Four deep gashes ran from his left shoulder blade to his right hip, the edges already turning black.
The same venom that had paralyzed me. But Harris was human. Fragile. Breakable.
I tried to stand, to go to him, but my legs still wouldn’t work.
“Nathaniel!” Simone called sharply, when Sally let out a gasping rattle of breath. “I need you! Tend to the other one—we’re losing her!”
The vampire king was already there, crouching beside Sally. He bit into his own wrist without hesitation, dark blood welling from the wound.
Emma dropped to her knees beside Sally, shooting him an alarmed look. “She won’t turn?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “Not unless she dies with my blood in her system.”
Emma nodded, then cradled Sally’s head in her lap and carefully tilted it back, letting Nathaniel’s blood drip between her lips.
Sally coughed weakly, her eyelids fluttering.
Simone had already torn into her own wrist. She pressed it to Harris’s mouth, her other hand cradling his head. “Come now, detective,” she murmured. “Drink.”
I watched, frozen and useless, as ancient, powerful vampire blood seeped between my mate’s lips. Would it work to undo the Algea’s wounds? Would it save him? Vampire blood was one of the most powerful healing agents in existence—for humans, at least. But could it counteract the paralytic venom of the Algea’s claws?
The scene from another clearing just like this one, when my entire life had changed, played in my mind on a loop. Thierryfeeding Jeremy his blood, pleading with him to wake up. Me nearby, helplessly watching, unable to fix anything, knowing I had been too slow.
Now, here I was again. Too slow to save someone I loved. All I could do was watch helplessly as the paralysis gripped my limbs. It was a nightmare I seemed doomed to repeat.
For a horrible, endless moment, nothing happened.
Then Harris’s throat moved. He swallowed.
Relief flooded through me and I let out a choked rasp that would’ve been a sob, had I been in human form. But my emotions were jagged and raw. It should have been me cradling Harris. It should have been me who had stopped this from ever happening to him.
Harris coughed. His eyes cracked open.
“Sally,” he rasped. “Is she—”
“She is alive,” Simone said. “Thanks to you.”
“The others—Reed!” Harris bolted upright, his gaze searching the clearing until it landed on me. He let out a strangled noise and lurched to his feet.
Then he swayed, staggering.
Simone, who moved faster than my eyes could track, caught him before he could fall. “If you die, Nicolas will be very upset. And then Thierry will be very upset withmefor allowing it to happen,” she said. “You do not want to get me into trouble, do you?”
“There’s a vial of blood in the cabin,” Harris said desperately, pulling free of her grasp and lurching toward me. “It’ll fix this. It undoes enchantments! It’s what I used on Reed last time!”
Daniel and Lee, now in human form, were cradling Hunter from the opposite side of the clearing. Daniel’s face was streaked with tears and Lee looked paler than I had ever seen him as he gazed down at his twin. “We need to get it.Now,” Lee said.
“That’s not going to be necessary,” Ethan said quietly, straightening up. He had been checking on the fallen witches. Poppy and Tatiana were both sitting on the ground, shaken and covered in sweat, breathing hard. Wynn was unconscious beside them, her chest still rising and falling steadily.
“Ethan!” Nathaniel snarled, looking up from Sally. He had been whispering to her—probably soothing her, or maybe even removing the horror of whatever she had experienced at the hands of the Algea. Vampires were capable of altering memory. I would have been grateful if he had—there was no reason for Sally to carry any of this. “Don’t! Let one of us do it.”
By “us” he probably meant him and Simone. The vampires.
But conviction settled across the warlock’s expression as he met his husband’s gaze. “No. I’m not sure what vampire blood will do to them, but they already knowmyblood works. Which means I can help them.”
The vampire king rose to his feet and blurred to Ethan’s side. “Don’t harm yourself.Please.”
The white-haired warlock locked eyes with his husband. “If it’ll help, I have to. You know that. This is what my power is for.” He smiled, a bit hesitantly. “It’s just a little blood. You know I’m not squeamish.”
